Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. Matt. 11:29.

The Christian faith begets in every believer a sense of greatness. But there is no struggle for self-supremacy, nothing that seeks attention. We live in an age of excitation and emotionalism, a time of frenzied eloquence, when the virtue of rebellion is extolled. Our text sets before us the quiet dignity that emulates Christ.

Our Lord gave no sanction to an artificially produced excitement in religion. He spoke and acted as a Man at harmony within Himself, with God, and with man. The eminence of His spiritual dignity in no way shattered the mind or overwhelmed the heart. Christ accepted the dignity of man made in the image of God. "A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench." Because He knew of the sufferings and sins of men, He did not come with the shouts of the conqueror, the loud instruments of drum and trumpet, but with the gentleness of God, attracting little children.

Christ knew that to live the Christian life attractively, men must move quietly, with dignity, with the warmth of love. Someone has said that "real power is not measured by the noise men make." We are called to humility, not pride; to refinement, not coarseness; to peace, not to agitation.

Sensationalism places the emphasis upon the self. When men spend too much time seeking the ecstatic and the exciting, truth is subordinated to the exaltation of self. The individual is left with nothing to contemplate but the inflated feelings he claims to experience. A religious excitement that feeds upon itself is a parasite.

We live in a day of exaggerated advertising. There must be no self-advertisement in the true Christian. "The lack of true dignity and Christian refinement . . . is against us as a people, and makes the truth which we profess unsavory" (Testimonies, vol. 4, p. 358). One of the more insidious perils in religious life is the debasement of it by cheapening it through emotionalism. The antidote for emotionalism in religion is a close acquaintance with the sweetness of Jesus Christ. Here life reaches an eminence in divine quietness and loveliness that is irresistible.